NFL RedZonehttp://www.adweek.com/taxonomy/term/10357/all
enDirecTV Keeps Plugging Away at NFL Sunday Ticket Renewalhttp://www.adweek.com/news/television/directv-keeps-plugging-away-nfl-sunday-ticket-renewal-155859
Anthony Crupi<img src="http://www.adweek.com/files/imagecache/node-detail/news_article/mike-white-hed-2014.jpg"> <p>
DirecTV continues to plug away at a deal that would allow it to retain the exclusive rights to the <a href="http://www.directv.com/sports/nfl" target="_blank">NFL Sunday Ticket</a> package, but the satellite-TV giant said it has yet to finalize an agreement with the league.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Speaking to investors during the company&rsquo;s fourth quarter earnings call Thursday, DirecTV chairman and CEO Mike White said the negotiations began to pick up steam after the NFL season officially ended on Feb 2.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Obviously, things tend to get pushed to the side&hellip;but now that we&rsquo;re through the Super Bowl we&rsquo;ve both agreed to extend our exclusive negotiating period,&rdquo; White said. &ldquo;Our conversations with the NFL are progressing in a very positive and constructive manner.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
White added that he continues to be very optimistic that <a href="http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/manning-brothers-channel-lonely-island-directv-151720" target="_blank">DirecTV</a> will hold onto the rights to Sunday Ticket, for which it pays $1 billion per season. DirecTV has been the exclusive distribution partner of the out-of-market package since the NFL first rolled it out back in 1994.</p>
<p>
DirecTV&rsquo;s current agreement expires at the end of the 2014 NFL campaign.</p>
<p>
White hinted that the digital rights component of the new agreement may have complicated the negotiations, before adding that he hopes to have more to say on the matter later this year.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;In every discussion that we have on any content, digital rights are an important part of those discussions, and frankly that&rsquo;s often partly why things take a little longer these days to get done,&rdquo; White said. &ldquo;Because it&rsquo;s an awfully complex digital landscape in deciding exactly what rights a content provider will or won&rsquo;t provide you.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;But from our perspective, we&rsquo;re optimistic. We very much value our relationship with the NFL, we think it&rsquo;s important to our brand&mdash;but we&rsquo;re also looking for opportunities, as we did last year, to strengthen what we&rsquo;re doing in a smaller way with our DirecTV app and the Sunday Ticket Experience.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
Last year, DirecTV chief financial officer Patrick Doyle suggested that the NFL&rsquo;s asking price for the Sunday Ticket package was too steep, noting that if the price went much higher, the operator would consider <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/television/directv-may-punt-away-sunday-ticket-rights-147820" target="_blank">sharing the load</a> with a third party carrier or dropping the service altogether.</p>
<p>
Although a number of outlets in December reported that a deal had been reached, the NFL was quick to refute those claims. But as long as the exclusive negotiating window remains propped open, Sunday Ticket is DirecTV&rsquo;s to lose.</p>
<p>
Both parties have been <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/television/directv-nfl-sunday-ticket-talks-151659" target="_blank">negotiating</a> on and off since before the 2013 NFL season began.</p>
<p>
However the talks pan out, Sunday Ticket is a loss leader. Approximately 10 percent of DirecTV&rsquo;s sub base, or 2 million customers, pay the annual $300 fee for the all-inclusive football package. That said, Sunday Ticket gives the satellite company a huge advantage over its MVPD rivals in an increasingly <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/television/nielsen-overturns-earlier-call-super-bowl-xlviii-most-watched-ever-155461" target="_blank">NFL-crazed</a> consumer landscape.</p>
<p>
Still, the absolute value of Sunday Ticket has somewhat eroded over the past few years. For one thing, the NFL&rsquo;s newly revised full-season <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/television/nfl-win-cbs-lands-even-bigger-bang-155503" target="_blank">Thursday Night Football</a> schedule has incrementally boosted the odds of finding your favorite out-of-market team on a national TV platform; moreover, the rise of the look-in service <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/television/redzone-scores-td-fans-144456" target="_blank">NFL RedZone</a> offers a fast-paced, commercial-free experience rivaling that of its much pricier forebear.&nbsp;</p>
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<p>
Because sports rights are the priciest ticket in the MVPD ecosystem, White also talked a little baseball. The DirecTV boss said that talks between his company and Time Warner Cable&rsquo;s new <a href="http://losangeles.dodgers.mlb.com/index.jsp?c_id=la" target="_blank">Los Angeles Dodgers</a> network have been stymied by the startup&rsquo;s unprecedentedly high sub fee.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Look, I&rsquo;d like to carry the Dodgers, but unfortunately Time Warner Cable has done an unprecedented deal for local sports rights. I mean, the Dodgers channel is over double what the average regional sports network charges per customer per game&mdash;and by the way, all the other [regional sports networks] have at least one other pro team,&rdquo; White said. &ldquo;So it&rsquo;s a staggering increase relative to any other benchmark in Major League Baseball.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
White said that he hopes to come to terms with the RSN, but the price will have to come down sharply before an agreement can be reached.</p>
<p>
Insiders say <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/television/time-warner-does-math-sky-high-sports-rights-146914" target="_blank">SportsNet LA</a> is looking to secure the highest affiliate fee for any extant RSN, north of $4.75 per subscriber per month. That fee, which gets passed down to the customer, is the primary reason why the RSN has not been able to secure carriage on DirecTV and Cox Communications.&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Noting that DirecTV would be forced to charge &ldquo;more than an average increase in our surcharge&rdquo; in the Los Angeles area should it decide to carry SportsNet LA, White said that this kind of sudden billing increase &ldquo;is what drives people to want to see a la carte.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
SportsNet LA is set to go live on Feb. 25.</p>
<p>
In a non-sports-related interval, White fielded a question about how parting ways with the Weather Channel had impacted DirecTV&rsquo;s sub count.&nbsp;&ldquo;I would say we may have lost a few thousand customers in the first quarter related to the Weather Channel dispute,&rdquo; he said, before qualifying his estimate with the observation that a price increase had gone into effect at the same time the two entities were falling out.&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Citing lower ratings and a plethora of available alternatives,&nbsp;<a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/television/directv-demands-20-percent-rate-cut-then-drops-weather-channel-154964" target="_blank">DirecTV dropped the Weather Channel</a> from its lineup in mid-January.&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&ldquo;I continue to believe that if your viewership goes down materially or customers are finding other ways to access that content&hellip;that should be reflected in the price that one pays for a service,&rdquo; White said. &ldquo;The impact on our U.S. business? It&rsquo;s a little early to say.&rdquo;</p>
TelevisionCableCarriage DisputesCox CommunicationsDirectvLos Angeles DodgersMike WhiteNational Football LeagueNflNFL RedZoneNFL Sunday TicketRatingsRegional Sports NetworksRSNsSatelliteSportsSportsNet LAThe Weather ChannelTime Warner CableFri, 21 Feb 2014 00:21:21 +0000155859 at http://www.adweek.comDirecTV, NFL in Sunday Ticket Talkshttp://www.adweek.com/news/television/directv-nfl-sunday-ticket-talks-151659
Anthony Crupi<img src="http://www.adweek.com/files/imagecache/node-detail/news_article/ny-giants-nfl-punt-hed-2013.jpg"> <p>
<a href="http://www.directv.com/DTVAPP/content/directv-tv-deals-gm?CMP=KNC-CBR-607160274&amp;siclientid=7492&amp;sessguid=48eb1468-ae88-49b4-a464-91ba655638c4&amp;userguid=48eb1468-ae88-49b4-a464-91ba655638c4&amp;permguid=48eb1468-ae88-49b4-a464-91ba655638c4&amp;sissr=1" target="_blank">DirecTV</a> is in discussions with the National Football League that could determine the fate of the Sunday Ticket franchise.</p>
<p>
Speaking to investors during DirecTV&rsquo;s second quarter earnings call, chairman and CEO Michael White said talks with the NFL are ongoing. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re always in a dialogue with the NFL about how things are going and how we can continue to improve and build the franchise, and we&#39;ve had those discussions as well this year,&rdquo; White said. &ldquo;We continue to have very constructive discussions with the NFL.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
White went on to add that he believed a renewal would be reached before the current contract expires after the 2014 season. &ldquo;I continue to be optimistic that we&rsquo;re great partners together and that Sunday Ticket will stay with us for the long haul.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
As is the case with most high-profile sports tent poles, price is the deciding factor in the talks. DirecTV pays $1 billion per year for Sunday Ticket, an exclusive out-of-market package that allows viewers to watch nearly every game on the NFL schedule.</p>
<p>
In March, DirecTV <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/television/directv-may-punt-away-sunday-ticket-rights-147820" target="_blank">chief financial officer Patrick Doyle intimated that the NFL&rsquo;s fee was too steep</a>, adding that the satellite operator would not be willing to pay a significantly higher rate going forward.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;For us, there&rsquo;s a point where we&rsquo;re certainly willing to renew and at some increase that&rsquo;s reasonable, that we can absorb and continue to pass on to the customer,&rdquo; Doyle said in a session of the Deutsche Bank media conference in Palm Beach, Fla. &ldquo;I think, obviously, if it goes above that, we would certainly either think about not carrying it or go nonexclusive.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
If the terms of the league&rsquo;s most recent renewals are any indication, DirecTV could face a significant price increase if it decides to stay in the Sunday Ticket business. The aggregate jump in rights for NFL TV partners <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/television/nfl-hammers-out-nine-year-rights-renewals-nbc-cbs-fox-137128" target="_blank">CBS, NBC, Fox and ESPN</a> works out to 76.6 percent versus the costs associated with the 2006-13 deals. All things being equal, a $1.76 billion annual payment is probably too rich for DirecTV&rsquo;s blood.</p>
<p>
That the NFL can command such altitude sickness-inducing rates is a function of the league&rsquo;s <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/television/nfl-caps-another-powerhouse-season-146305" target="_blank">universal popularity</a>. Last season, NFL broadcasts averaged 19.3 million viewers&mdash;a little more than two-and-a-half times the size of the average prime-time entertainment audience (7.6 million).</p>
<p>
Since Doyle made that earlier statement, DirecTV has been mum on the matter. For his part, White gave greater emphasis to the time remaining on the contract.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve had a very long and very positive and, I think, mutually beneficial relationship with the NFL,&rdquo; White said. &ldquo;And by the way, we&rsquo;ve still got two more seasons to go on our current deal. We&rsquo;re, frankly, mostly focused right now on getting ready to launch our new ads and our new promotional offer around NFL Sunday Ticket.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
White added that DirecTV is getting ready to update its Sunday Ticket iPad app with new features designed to appeal to the <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/billion-dollar-draft-136370" target="_blank">Fantasy Football</a> crowd.</p>
<p>
Should DirecTV punt on the Sunday Ticket rights or choose to sign a non-exclusive deal with the NFL, a rival cable operator is likely to rush in to fill the void. DirecTV has held the rights to Sunday Ticket since the league introduced the package in 1994.</p>
<p>
Cable providers aside, Sunday Ticket would also seem to be an alluring acquisition for the likes of Google or Apple TV, although it&rsquo;s uncertain if NFL owners would approve of getting into bed with one of these &ldquo;disruptive&rdquo; technologies.</p>
<p>
While there&rsquo;s no question that Sunday Ticket has been a killer app for DirecTV, the value of the property has eroded somewhat over the past few years. The NFL&rsquo;s full-season Thursday Night Football schedule has incrementally boosted the odds of finding your favorite out-of-market team on a national TV platform; moreover, the rise of the look-in service <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/television/redzone-scores-td-fans-144456" target="_blank">NFL RedZone</a> offers a fast-paced, commercial-free experience rivaling Sunday Ticket.</p>
<p>
At the midway point in the year, DirecTV boasts 20 million subscribers, up just 0.5 percent versus 19.9 million in the first half of 2012. DirecTV is the nation&rsquo;s No. 2 multichannel video provider, trailing only cable giant Comcast (21.8 million).</p>
<p>
DirecTV&rsquo;s Q2 domestic revenues grew 5 percent to $5.94 billion.</p>
TelevisionApple TVCableCbsComcastDirectvEspnFoxGoogleNational Football LeagueNbcNetworksNflNFL RedZoneNFL Sunday TicketRatingsSportsSports Rights DealsFri, 02 Aug 2013 19:57:10 +0000151659 at http://www.adweek.comDirecTV May Punt Away Sunday Ticket Rightshttp://www.adweek.com/news/television/directv-may-punt-away-sunday-ticket-rights-147820
Anthony Crupi<img src="http://www.adweek.com/files/imagecache/node-detail/news_article/masthayx-large.jpg"> <p>
DirecTV may elect to punt on its exclusive rights to <a href="http://www.directv.com/sports/nfl" target="_blank">NFL Sunday Ticket</a>.</p>
<p>
Speaking to investors at a Deutsche Bank media conference in Palm Beach, Fla., DirecTV chief financial officer Patrick Doyle said the satellite operator would be averse to paying a significantly higher rate for the NFL games package. DirecTV&rsquo;s current four-year deal costs it $1 billion per season.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;For us, there&rsquo;s a point where we&rsquo;re certainly willing to renew and at some increase that&rsquo;s reasonable, that we can absorb and continue to pass on to the customer,&rdquo; Doyle said. &ldquo;I think, obviously, if it goes above that, we would certainly either think about not carrying it or go nonexclusive.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
Should DirecTV surrender the package or choose to sign a non-exclusive deal, it is likely that a rival cable operator would rush to fill the void. DirecTV has held the rights to Sunday Ticket since the league introduced it in 1994.</p>
<p>
The current contract expires in 2015.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;We&rsquo;re not necessarily concerned about going to nonexclusive, if [the deal] is structured properly,&rdquo; Doyle said. &ldquo;Our goal would always be to keep it exclusive, if we can. But there&rsquo;s&hellip;obviously, there&rsquo;s a price point that I think we would reach where we wouldn&rsquo;t do that to our shareholders.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
For the last 20 years, Sunday Ticket has been the key differentiator separating DirecTV from the Comcasts and Time Warner Cables of the multichannel universe. But as the company&rsquo;s subscriber growth has dwindled&mdash;DirecTV closed out 2012 with 20.1 million subscribers, up just 1 percent versus 19.9 million in the year-ago period&mdash;the package is no longer carrying its weight.</p>
<p>
While Sunday Ticket offers subscribers an out-of-market pass to nearly every NFL game, the rise of NFL Network and its <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/television/redzone-scores-td-fans-144456" target="_blank">commercial-free NFL RedZone</a> service are likely eating into DirecTV&rsquo;s margins. Last April, DirecTV slashed the price of a Sunday Ticket pass for current subscribers around 40 percent to $199.95 per year.</p>
<p>
Doyle said DirecTV is not in formal talks with the NFL, although the company &ldquo;continue[s] to have a dialogue&rdquo; with the league. &ldquo;Our relationship&rsquo;s great. We continue to talk and share information on how did this last season go, what were the take rates, how did our strategies work,&rdquo; Doyle said before adding that because DirecTV cannot monetize the games by selling ad inventory, it relies on significant adoption rates to justify the cost of keeping the package.</p>
<p>
The NFL is almost certain to look for a higher rate should DirecTV elect to retain possession of Sunday Ticket. When <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/television/nfl-hammers-out-nine-year-rights-renewals-nbc-cbs-fox-137128" target="_blank">the league re-upped with broadcast partners</a> CBS, Fox, NBC and ESPN in 2011, the price of doing business jumped considerably. For example, Fox&rsquo;s nine-year renewal is valued at $1.11 billion per year, an increase of 56 percent versus the $713 million per year the network shelled out for its 2006-13 contract.</p>
<p>
Because the NFL offers advertisers one of the very last great reach vehicles, the average unit cost for a spot in a live game is unprecedented. Per SQAD NetCosts estimates, Fox in 2012 commanded $589,000 for each :30 that ran in its late NFL broadcasts, making it the most expensive regularly-scheduled buy on the tube. By way of comparison, that rate was higher than what Fox charged for time in its broadcast of the 2012 <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/television/show-me-moneyball-march-madness-generates-1-billion-ad-sales-147732" target="_blank">MLB All-Star Game ($550,000)</a> and the four-game World Series ($450,000). According to Kantar Media, the late national NFC game also fetched a higher unit cost than the NBA Finals on ABC ($460,000).</p>
<p>
This past season, NFL broadcasts averaged 19.3 million viewers, marking a 154 percent advantage over all broadcast prime time fare (7.6 million).</p>
<p>
Any cable operator looking to score a Sunday Ticket pass would have to do so against a prickly CBS-Fox defensive front line.&nbsp;Both networks have been opposed to increasing the package&rsquo;s distribution, arguing that higher adoption rates would likely take a chunk out of their early- and late-game deliveries.&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Meanwhile, the NFL could further disrupt the ecosystem by moving its Thursday Night Football package from its homegrown net to a cable outlet. Turner Sports, Fox Sports and Comcast/NBCUniversal are particularly keen on acquiring an eight-game slate. The league in 2011 <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/new-thursday-nfl-package-sidelined-135247" target="_blank">sidelined a proposed Thursday night auction</a>, opting instead to add five games to NFL Network&rsquo;s roster.</p>
TelevisionCableCbsDirectvEspnFoxMajor League BaseballNational Football LeagueNbaNbcNetworksNflNFL NetworkNFL RedZoneNFL RightsNFL Sunday TicketSportsSports Rights FeesFri, 08 Mar 2013 19:41:27 +0000147820 at http://www.adweek.comNFL Network Scores Carriage Deal With Cablevision http://www.adweek.com/news/television/nfl-network-scores-carriage-deal-cablevision-142819
Anthony Crupi<img src="http://www.adweek.com/files/imagecache/node-detail/news_article/greenbay-packers-nfl-hed-2012.jpg"> <p>
After years of being all but shut out of the nation&rsquo;s top market, NFL Network has established a beach head in the greater New York DMA, inking a multi-year agreement with Cablevision.</p>
<p>
Effective Aug. 17,&nbsp;NFL Network&nbsp;will be available on channel 150 in Cablevision households that subscribe to the digital-plus tiers iO Preferred, iO Silver, iO Gold or the iO Sports and Entertainment Pak. Per terms of the deal, the Sunday look-in service NFL RedZone will set up shop on channel 151.</p>
<p>
The standard beefs about tiering and sub fees had long been at the heart of the Cablevision-NFL Network stalemate. Per SNL Kagan estimates, NFL Network charges a princely carriage fee of 84 cents per sub per month, making it the fourth most expensive national cable channel on the dial.</p>
<p>
Financials were not disclosed. The deal comes just six months after the NFL elected to hand <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/television/nfl-network-beefs-its-2012-slate-137973" target="_blank">five additional regular-season games</a> to its in-house media apparatus. The first of NFL Net&rsquo;s 13 <em>Thursday Night Football</em> telecasts is set to air on Sept. 13 (Chicago at Green Bay).</p>
<p>
With a total video sub base of 3.26 million households, Cablevision is the fifth largest cable operator in the country. The Bethpage, N.Y.-based MSO is ranked No. 9 among all pay-TV providers when satellite TV services and telcos are factored into the equation.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;We know there is significant interest in the NFL Network and NFL RedZone among our Optimum TV customers, and are pleased to have worked productively with the NFL to offer both channels in time for the upcoming season, and for years to come,&rdquo; said Mac Budill, Cablevision&rsquo;s evp of programming, by way of confirming the agreement.</p>
<p>
The deal leaves Time Warner Cable as the lone major NFL Net holdout. Both sides had appeared to be on the verge of coming to terms last summer, but <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/television/delay-game-time-warner-cable-nfl-network-talks-break-down-135870" target="_blank">negotiations were scuttled</a> before a binding agreement was drafted.</p>
<p>
While <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/television/nfl-network-carriage-talks-time-warner-cable-133867" target="_blank">NFL commissioner Roger Goodell&rsquo;s optimism</a> couldn&rsquo;t move the needle a year ago, the Cablevision breakthrough could be just the thing to bring Time Warner back to the table. Minutes after the carriage deal was announced, NFL Net anchor Rich Eisen <a href="https://twitter.com/richeisen/status/236119520085938176" target="_blank">tweeted</a> a playful jab at the elusive MSO: &ldquo;Time Warner Cable! This is NFL Network! We&rsquo;ve got you surrounded! Come out of the house with your hands up!&rdquo;)</p>
<p>
In the near term, however, the lines of communication between the NFL and Time Warner would appear to remain closed. &ldquo;We are not talking, regrettably,&rdquo; said NFL Media chief operating officer Brian Rolapp.</p>
<p>
Time Warner serves 12.7 million subs nationwide and is the leading operator in the greater New York metro area. The company runs systems&nbsp;in 12 of the NFL&rsquo;s 32 home markets.</p>
TelevisionCableCablevisionCarriage DealsMac BudillNational Football LeagueNflNFL NetworkNFL RedZoneRatingsRich EisenRoger GoodellSportsThursday Night FootballTime Warner CableThu, 16 Aug 2012 16:38:57 +0000142819 at http://www.adweek.com